Guiding Customers
To Self Serve In-store

client

M&S

Project

In-store mode in existing consumer app

Role

Senior Product Designer

DURATION

4 Week Discovery

AGENCY

TAB




The Brief

Marks & Spencer wanted to explore a potential set of new features that will sit within the existing M&S core app, to enhance the in-store experience and drive self-service for their valued customers.

Initial Research

Visiting some of the capitals busiest stores, the team set out to complete some simple missions that an average customer may undertake. This ranged from finding a product in-store through to using the existing app to gain any product information.


Shopping Journeys & Opportunities

Using our research we mapped out all the essential user journeys we undertook and went through all the segments of an experience through what a customer was thinking and feeling at each moment and to what extent were there pain points. Utilising this information we were able to identify opportunities where we could improve the overall customer experience within the app.

Sketched Concepts

Once the opportunities had been discovered I ran quick ideation sessions to sketch out where we can add both business and consumer value for the in-store experience. These ranged from locating a previously saved product in-store, to gaining offers on other related items once scanned, to using a photograph to access the outfit details and locate them in-store.

Guerilla Testing Ideation Cards

Once a set of ideation cards had been created we set about to test them with customers at 2 London M&S locations, Westfield White City and Moorgate. This gave us a mix of different types of customers given the timeframe. We tested around 10 concepts with various customers from various backgrounds and ages.

Customer Feedback


The initial results were leaning to concepts which covered simple tasks and missions i.e finding a product in-store to locating the right size options. We took the successful ideas forward to use and create our MVP. Below is the sample of some of the feedback received when testing out the initial ideas.

Defining The MVP


After analysing data from our guerilla testing sessions, I set out to create the first version of the MVP. This included around 8 or so ideas stitched altogether to form a frictionless in-store experience.

Exploring The Look & Feel


As the in-store mode was to be set within the existing mobile apps there was already a UI design system in place. Always looking to push any guidelines I kept exploring ways to bring the ideas to life within the set parameters.

Testing The MVP


Once an MVP was designed the next step was to gain customer feedback as the experience was all linked together to form a prototype ready for some user testing. The choice of user testing tool was Lookback. This allowed me to snip videos and add annotations to important segments of the interviews. I set a few tasks around way finding, content, language and functionality.

The Iterated MVP


From the consolidated results which were based around some of the original tasks and missions a final look and feel was designed in keeping with the existing app design.

Conclusion


During the discovery 4 week project there were a few challenges along the way. Navigating to the right departments and personnel, understanding of the complexities of the existing app, and certain commercial requirements became obstacles which as a team we eventually worked through. We produced an in-store concept which was to be pushed forward into the next phase of becoming a reality.